


take a shot or two, babe

by wonderguks



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Boxing, M/M, kinda?? yknow, this took me about a month because i kept procrastinating on it, why did this take me so long to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderguks/pseuds/wonderguks
Summary: The man furrows his eyebrows and looks down, thinking. He clicks his tongue, speaking, “Just water, please.”“Water?” Doyoung asks. It seemed like the least popular drink in the bar—he hadn’t seen anyone order water since the pack of old ladies that paraded in there one night thinking that it was McDonalds.





	take a shot or two, babe

“Excuse me, sir.”  
  
The voice is sturdy and flowy, and it awakens Doyoung as he blinks open his eyes. Admittedly, it’s not his fault he’s sleeping on the job—it’s late (though, many could argue eleven o’clock at night isn’t late at all) and Doyoung, however, isn’t too amused by serving drunk men who are way too loud at such ungodly hours. In his defense, though, nobody was in there anyways therefore leaving a free period of time which he wasn’t going to watch football re-runs on TV.  
  
He rubs at his eyes, and blinks at the man in front of him. He’s a bit tall with brown hair and a very, very attractive jaw line, but littered across his face and neck are cuts and gashes, some covered by bandages and others not. Doyoung winces staring at him.  
  
“Sorry for falling asleep,” he mumbles, looking at the clock. “What can I get you?”  
  
The man furrows his eyebrows and looks down, thinking. He clicks his tongue, speaking, “Just water, please.”  
  
“Water?” Doyoung asks. It seemed like the least popular drink in the bar—he hadn’t seen anyone order water since the pack of old ladies that paraded in there one night thinking that it was McDonalds.  
  
The man nods as Doyoung shuffles around trying to grab a glass through the upward cabinets. He manages to grab one (by tippy-toe functioning) and he pours a pitcher of ice water into the glass from the mini fridge. Doyoung yawns a little as he hands him the drink.  
  
“Thank you,” he says. Doyoung examines him carefully as he takes the glass—the man’s hands are even bruised—and he looks away painfully as the man gives him a questioning look.  
  
“Are you wondering about the scars?”  
  
The question sends Doyoung to blush and look down avoiding the guy’s soft gaze as he sat back at down on his stool a little from the bar. He didn’t mean to stare—but when random men who come into the bar asking for a glass of water while looking like they had beat someone’s ass, it leaves a lot to the imagination and a lot for eyes to stare at.  
  
“Yeah. Kinda,” he coughs, rubbing his face. “Sorry for staring. I just—I don’t get a lot of guys who are like you in here often.”  
  
“Guys like me?” he asks, staring at up at Doyoung amusingly.  
  
“Yeah. I’ve never seen anyone come in so late and just ask for . . .water. Sometimes people come in and ask for a drink and ask for me to water it down a little, but that’s not just asking for a glass of water, y’know?”  
  
The man nods and takes a sip of his water. Doyoung notices, then, that the man’s left ring finger is almost gone—it’s down halfway left almost to just healed skin over bone, but he doesn’t stare long. This is a stranger after all, he shouldn’t stare at their scars.  
  
“The reason I’m all bruised up tonight is because I had a fight earlier—I’m a boxer downtown. The fight ended a little later than expected so the aid we always have on sight was really tired, so he patched up half of my face and said he’d finish the rest tomorrow so I shouldn’t touch on a lot of my face until then. Taeil’s kind of a grandpa,” he says, smiling a little.  
  
Doyoung notices he has dimples in both his cheeks whenever smiles. How cute.  
  
“Boxing? Wow. You must be, like, ripped from it,” Doyoung blushes, laughing. “Sorry. But, no, really, boxing is a really cool sport. It’s considered a sport, right?”  
  
The guy nods as he smiles at him. “Yeah, it is. I’m Jaehyun, by the way.”  
  
He holds out his hand for Doyoung to shake over the bar-top counter; it’s his right hand. Doyoung shakes the Jaehyun’s hand and feels the roughness of his palms and how calloused they feel—the hand lotion he uses against his own must feel odd against Jaehyun’s.  
  
“I’m Doyoung, also,” he adds.  
  
Jaehyun just nods and averts his eyes to the clock next to the TV on the wall. It’s a little past midnight now and Doyoung wants to cry a little—he wasn’t allowed to close the bar before two in the morning (though, it was unfair seeing the neighborhood the bar had been placed in.)  
  
“You going home soon? It’s a bit late,” Jaehyun acknowledges, glancing back at a very droopy-looking Doyoung. He’s sat slumped on the bar stool behind the bar-top counter, and, honestly, he’s a few minutes away from falling asleep again.  
  
He frowns. “I don’t think so. Guy who owns this place says it has to be open till two. I don’t think I’m gonna make it.”  
  
“Two? Jesus,” Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “That’s way too late—this isn’t even a nightclub. This neighborhood is a bit  
. . .dodgy too, might I say.”  
  
“Tell that to my boss, please.”  
  
Jaehyun smiles, faintly, and just keeps his grip firm on the glass as the football re-run on the TV clicks over to a very raunchy commercial featuring an American girl. He doesn’t bat an eye at her small bikini or seductive winks—it would woe over any _seemingly_ regular straight man. Who _was_ this Jaehyun?  
  
There’s a comfortable silence arisen in the air as Jaehyun watches the TV and Doyoung sits and tries to deprive his eyes from closing shut completely. Doyoung shakes his head, and stares at him insistently as if there was something off with him.  
  
“Can I clean the rest of your cuts?”  
  
The question escapes his mouth before he even has a chance to think and Jaehyun—Jaehyun blinks blankly twice looking a bit confused. It was a fair reaction.  
  
“You’d do that?” he asks.  
  
“Yeah. I mean, I have a first AID kit in the employees room—even though I’m the only one who works here—and I know how to clean a wound good enough,” a pause, then, “That’s if you allow me to, of course.”  
  
Jaehyun looks down as to think, and then, he nods feebly. “I’d like that.”  
  
  
  
  
  
In a mere few moments—or, rather, about seven minutes—Doyoung and Jaehyun are situated in the employees room. Doyoung is digging through the cabinets and drawers and Jaehyun sits awkwardly in one of the black chairs availiable as the TV noise drifts into there.  
  
“Sorry it’s taking so long for me to find it,” he said, finally picking up a small little compartment from a drawer.  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  
Doyoung shuffles over to where Jaehyun is and doesn’t hesitate to start unwrapping and unlocking packages at lightning speed. He looked natural doing this in a way—like he was meant to be a paramedic of sorts. Jaehyun scrunches his nose. “You look professional. Kinda like a nurse.”  
  
“Really?” he asks. Doyoung is coating the cotton ball, in his hand, very deeply in alcohol and it makes Jaehyun stare.  
  
“Yeah, you just feel like a. . . _not_ -bartender.”  
  
“Oh,” he says. He stands in front of Jaehyun, then, and his eyes immediately are forwarded to the looming gash on his neck which was swollen. “Just a warning: this might hurt.”  
  
Jaehyun just winces a little as Doyoung begins to dab at the gash, careful to not press down hard but not too soft too clean the wound. It’s only a few moments before the cut is free of dry blood and Doyoung can put a bandage on it.  
  
He grabs a large bandaid out of the container and puts it on neatly making sure it’ll stick for the next upcoming hours.  
  
“Just a few more to go now.”  
  
Doyoung takes immaculate care cleaning and applying bandaids to every cut and gash scattered across his neck and head. It’s only when he begins to clean a cut clear above his eye that Doyoung realizes how close in Jaehyun’s vicinity he is.  
  
There’s only a inch between them—they’re practically nose to nose—and if he scooted a little closer, or Jaehyun did, they would be kissing. He’d be kissing Jaehyun—a very attractive stranger in a bar at one in the morning who’s cuts he’s cleaning. Sounds romantic.  
  
Doyoung dabs at the cut a little bit more, stippling and wiping, before Jaehyun catches his eye. His eyes are a sort of mesmerizing brown, Doyoung thinks. Not the type of golden hour meets dark brown beautiful eyes, but the if-you-stare-long-enough-you-won’t-be-able-to-stop-looking type of brown eyes. His eyes are really beautiful.  
  
“You’ve been dabbing at the cut for a while,” Jaehyun comments making the tips of Doyoung’s ears burn an agressive shade of red.  
  
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m still tired.”  
  
Doyoung doesn’t bother to take long putting on the bandaid—he’s already made an interesting impression on this man tonight. He smooths the bandaid on very slickly.  
  
He takes a few steps back, and nods. He looks much better than before. When he had walked in, he looked rough—similar to the bad boys he’d read about online when he was younger, though he won’t admit—and he looked very eye-catching. Now, in the small employees room, looking a bit drowsy, he looks softer. Less square, more circle. Doyoung likes that.  
  
Not that this matters in the least.  
  
“Thank you,” he says, standing up suddenly. “A lot. Too many people wouldn’t be willing to do this.”  
  
Doyoung waves his hand. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s better than sitting and wishing I was at home when I’m not. You’ve made my night better.”  
  
Doyoung tries not to notice the slight pink tint to Jaehyun’s cheeks as they walk out of the room. Or even the smile on his face ad Jaehyun hands him fifty dollars as a  _tip_ and his phone number. He tries not to notice it at all.  
  
Because, somehow, Doyoung’s sure he won’t be forgetting this night anytime soon.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hi i've been gone for a while but this took me forever??? to?? write?? if you're reading this, you've probably made it to the end so thank you for reading this <3 
> 
> kudos + comments are welcomed !


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